The world knows Natalie Suleman as the ‘Octomum’ who became a global spectacle when she famously gave birth to octuplets in 2009, but the single mother of 14 now regrets becoming a headline.

Suleman created a media frenzy when she gave birth to two girls and six boys via in vitro fertilisation but as the children approach their eighth birthday she has apologised to them publicly for turning herself into “a carnival attraction”.

She said the public turned on her when she accepted offers to enter the adult entertainment industry soon after her kids were born.

The octuplets are approaching their eighth birthday. Source: Instagram

"Some of the things that I have done - of course that I'm ashamed of in the past - was just to put food on the table and just to take care of my family," Suleman revealed in a new interview.

"My kids get embarrassed because their friends sometimes will say 'My mum said your mum's a stripper,'" she admitted.

Her shortage of cash led Suleman to begin stripping and appear in an adult film, after which she fell into a deep depression and wound up in rehab. But there was one moment in particular when she realised it was time to make a change.

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When she saw her 10-year-old daughter put on her gold spiked heels she said her "heart sank".

"I felt like throwing up... That was the moment when I said I would rather be homeless living in the van with all my kids, than allow any of my girls to feel that they are not worthy enough and that they have to go down that path."

Suleman is now working part-time and receiving some government assistance.

She ended by saying she planned to "become a better person today than I was yesterday and be a better person tomorrow than I was today."